An impressive winter storm (which featured a TROWAL airstream) brought snow, sleet, and freezing rain to much of the central US during the 30 November to 01 December 2006 time frame — maximum snowfall totals included 8 inches in Texas, 15 inches in Oklahoma, 16 inches in Kansas, 18 inches in Missouri, 18 inches in Illinois, 17 inches in Wisconsin, and 17 inches in Michigan. The extensive swath of fresh snow cover was quite evident on the 01 December MODIS true color image (above; snow cover and clouds appear white) and false color image (below; snow cover and ice crystal clouds appear as shades of red, while water droplet clouds appear white). Note that if you fade between the MODIS true color and false color images (Java fader applet), you can see that there is also an area of ice-covered ground across parts of northern Missouri and southcentral Iowa (just north of the main snow band) — those areas received a significant glazing of ice due to freezing rain 2 days earlier (as discussed in the 30 November blog posting).

Also of interest is the rapid melting along the periphery of the southwestern portion of the snow cover (especially across Texas and Oklahoma) during the day on 01 December (QuickTime animation of GOES-12 visible images).

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A fast-moving winter storm was responsible for widespread snow, sleet, and freezing rain across much of central US on 29 November 2006; several counties in southeastern Iowa reported 1/8 to 1/4 inch of ice accumulation from the storm (MODIS false-color composite image). AWIPS MODIS images from the following day (30 November 2006) show the extent of the ice-covered ground: the area affected by the ice storm in southeastern Iowa appears to be bare ground on the visible channel image (above), but note the dark signal over that same region on the Band 7 (2.1µm) near-IR channel (below) — this dark signal confirms the presence of a coating of ice. This ice glaze was not apparent on the visible channel image since it had very little impact on the albedo of the ground surface, but the ice coating is strongly absorbent in the 2.1µm portion of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum (which yields a dark signal on that particular channel). Just to the north of the large patch of ice-covered ground is a narrower feature over east-central Iowa which exhibits a somewhat darker signal on the 2.1µm image; this is due to cloud shadows being cast onto the surface from the high cloud layer that was present (note that those shadows were also apparent on the visible channel image). An examination of the corresponding 11.0µm IR window and the 3.7µm shortwave IR images (Java applet) shows that there was very little thermal contrast between this ice-covered ground and the adjacent bare ground over the remainder of Iowa (due to the presence of a cold arctic air mass over the entire region on that day).

The remainder of the ice-covered ground (across southcentral Iowa into northern Missouri) was revealed by MODIS true color and false color image composites on the following day (01 December 2006), as clouds from a departing winter storm cleared from that area.

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AWIPS MODIS imagery revealed widespread condensation trails (or “contrails”) from commercial aircraft flying across the southeastern US on 29 November 2006. These contrails were best seen using the Band 26 (1.3µm) near-IR channel (above) and the Band 27 (6.7µm) water vapor channel (below). Rawinsonde data from Peachtree City GA (KFFC) and Greensboro NC (KGSO) indicated increasing moisture aloft within the range of altitudes common for commercial jets (around 35,000 feet) — the contrails were relatively long-lived within this relatively moist environment (GOES-12 water vapor channel animation).

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A very cold arctic air mass had been building over central Alaska and northwestern Canada during the latter half of November 2006 (surface air temperatures colder than -40 F/-40 C have been reported daily over that region since 21 November). A NOAA-15 AVHRR 10.8µm “IR window channel” image centered over the southern Yukon Territory (above) on 27 November (surface analysis) revealed that the coldest air (-40 to -50 C, darker blue enhancement) was settling into the lower elevations of the river valleys. Narrow lakes along and south of the Yukon Territory / British Columbia border exhibited significantly warmer IR brightness temperatures (-10 to -20 C, orange to yellow enhancement), due to heat radiating upward through the snow and ice covered lake surfaces.

A similar IR image centered a bit farther east over the Northwest Territories (below) showed warmer brightness temperatures over the higher terrain of the Mackenzie and Selwyn Mountains (-20 to -30 C, yellow to cyan enhancement) — those higher terrain features rose above the level of the strong temperature inversion which was trapping the coldest air near the surface at lower elevations. This IR image also revealed a comparatively warm signature (0 to -20 C, red to yellow enhancement) from the snow and ice covered surface of Great Bear Lake in the northern portion of the image. The 1-km resolution of the NOAA-15 AVHRR instrument showed the small-scale structure of these temperature features much better than the “4-km” resolution of GOES-11 (which had degraded to an effective resolution of about 12 km, due to the ~65 degree satellite viewing angle) — this is quite apparent looking at a NOAA-15 / GOES-11 IR image fader (Java applet).

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